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Oil Pipeline Research Paper

Decent Essays

Imagine living in a third world country with overcrowded houses and no job. That is how, “about 22% of our country’s 5.2 million Native Americans live” (A Program of Partnership With Native Americans). Right now Native American people take up about 2% of all land in North America, most of it being around the area of North and South Dakota. Over the past week there have been protests over the insertion of an oil pipeline through the Native American people, mainly the Standing Rock tribe’s, sacred land. This new pipeline would, “threaten water supplies for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of others downstream, and its route would destroy tribal burial grounds and sacred cultural land” (Healy). Many of the Native American people, along …show more content…

On this land the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s ancestors lived and were buried and is the land where there are cultural artifacts. No one would want a pipeline dug through where their loved one was laid to rest, why would the Standing Rock Sioux tribe want it any differently? If we keep on building this pipeline, the tribe is more likely to protest and cause a riot like we have seen over the past few days. This piece of evidence from the New York Times helps to show that these Native American people are not going to back down from their fight. “David Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, said that he was disappointed by the legal setback but that the tribe would make a “full-court press” to urge President Obama and federal officials not to let the pipeline cross the river” (Healy). If we know that these Native Americans are going to riot and cause a halt in the production of this pipeline, it would be unwise to keep going with the process. Another piece of evidence that supports this is a piece from an article written on nativenewsonline.net, a website dedicated to notifying others about Native American news. The quote reads, “We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline” (Rickert). This quote, again from one of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe …show more content…

This piece of evidence again from the New York Times shows that not only will the Native Americans be threatened but many other too. “Tribal and environmental activists say that the pipeline would threaten water supplies for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of others downstream” (Healy). If not only the Native Americans will be harmed but potential, like the article said, millions of others will be too, it makes the pipeline that more unreasonable. The government needs to be worrying about all of its people, and this pipeline seems to be causing more harm to them than helping. Another piece of evidence that shows the seriousness of the water issue comes from nativenewsonline.net. “This ruling puts 17 million people who rely on the Missouri River at serious risk” (Rickert). 17 million people is about 5.3% of the United States population, which doesn’t seem like much, but in the end is a massive amount of people. With this statistic alone, it would be crazy to keep on with this

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